Pier should never have been allowed to get so run-down

Emma Judd

RICK JACKSON: Girl power rules – at the age of two

A s I write, the hoardings were due to have been taken down from the front of South Parade Pier for the first time in ages.

It’s a start — perhaps the first step on the long road to the whole thing reopening again.

Personally, I still expect the back part of it to fall in the sea, for the Crown to pay for it to be cleared away, and for the front to reopen as prime seafront retail real estate. But that might be the cynic in me.

One thing I’m not going to do, though, is jump up and down with excitement that the pier’s canopy might not fall on my head if I run underneath it.

It’s criminal that it was allowed to get into such a state in the first place. Roll on the America’s Cup – then we’ll see how open the pier really is.